Sustainability Technology & The Evolution of Smart Cities

Tag: jh3550

Garbage has a high economic and environmental cost and burdens local municipalities. Increasing recycling rates can ease both the environmental impact of “landfilling” and the cost borne by municipalities.

Opportunity:

Dayton, Ohio, recently launched an incentive-based recycling program for residents that is made possible by radio frequency identification (RFID) tags affixed onto recycling bins and asset tracking software.

The program offers cash prices to encourage recycling.

To select winners, the city randomly chooses four recycling bins each month that are tagged with RFID. The RFID tags placed on the recycling bins store the address of the resident using the bin as well as an identification number. The data are transmitted through a special antenna installed on each garbage truck. The RFID hardware and information are integrated into an “asset tracking platform” that helps Dayton officials plan recycling pickup routes, schedules, budgets and usage rates.

Their goal is to double the amount of material recycled to 1,000 tons monthly. That would represent a $250,000 a year savings.

Power plants around the country use a centralized scheduling approach to forecast and distribute energy. This centralized approach does not support the integration of renewable energy systems and battery storage systems. The rise of on-site energy storage technologies makes centralized scheduling calculations significantly more complex.

Opportunity:

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for scheduling energy in electric grids that moves away from centralized management by tapping into the distributed computing power of energy devices.

By having each device communicate with its immediate neighbors, the device can calculate and schedule how much energy it will need to store, how much to contribute to the network, and how much to draw from the network. In this way, the program can determine the optimal schedule for the entire grid.

Distributed computing seeks to replace the traditional control center with a decentralized approach. This approach advances the smart grid concept by coordinating the energy being produced and stored by both conventional and renewable sources.

The technology has been validated in simulations, and the researchers are in the process of implementing it in an experimental smart grid system at the National Science Foundation FREEDM Systems Center on NC State’s campus. They expect to have results in 2016.

Problem: Municipal wastewater treatment facilities are extremely energy-intensive and costly to operate and maintain. Traditional systems use UV or chorine chemicals to treat the wastewater.

Considerations:

1. The Pasteurization Technology Group (PTG) has developed a patented “two-for one” technology that combines renewable energy generation with wastewater disinfection technologies.

2. Their system uses biogas, a natural byproduct of wastewater treatment to drive a turbine that generates renewable energy. About 30 percent of the energy created by the turbine generates electricity while the waste heat is passed through a waste heat recovery unit (CHP) to increase the temperature of the wastewater to around 165 degrees to disinfect water. Heat has always been an effective way to disinfect water, but the high expense of traditional heating methods prevented it from being an accepted alternative to UV or chorine.

3. This process has met the standards set by California for disinfection of water for reuse.

4. The system’s software allows off-site control.

5. In addition to waste water treatment, this technology can be used in water- and energy-intensive commercial industries including agriculture, beer, and beverage and food processing.

6. The company claims significant cost and energy savings in addition to environmental benefits from reduced chemical treatment.

Problem: The imperative of getting people life-saving vaccines faces daunting practical challenges including distribution, cold chain requirements and need for medical staff to administer the vaccines. There are the secondary challenges of used medical needles including millions of infections like Hepatitis B and AIDS and the significant environmental waste from billions of syringes and needles.

Main ideas:
1. A company based in the Netherlands, Bioneedle, has invented a new vaccine delivery system that may ultimately provide a new and safe alternative vaccination system.
2. At its core, the Bioneedle technology is a hollow, polymer needle-shaped mini-implant. When inserted, the polymer degrades, dissolves beneath the skin and releases the vaccine.
3. It is inserted at high speeds using a compressed air driven Bioneedle Applicator- pain-free and safely. There is NO waste.
4. The Bioneedle is “therm stable” thereby eliminating the onerous need to maintain vaccines at specific temperatures to keep stable.
5. The environmental benefits are enormous in both waste and energy savings.
6. As opposed to traditional vaccines, bioneedles can be given to more than thousand people per hour by non-medical staff.
Although in the early stages of development, Bioneedle was the winner of the 2012 Katerva Award.

Organizational Stakeholders:
1. World Health organizations/foundations. This would be a transformative technology that would extend vaccinations to millions of underserved people.
2. Doctors/clinics. In addition to reaching more people, the health and environmental aspects of having no needle or syringe waste is a game-changer.
3. General public. Bioneedles is especially needed in third world countries /rural areas where doctors are not available and the “cold chain” to preserve vaccines may be comprised.

Implementation:
1. Prove out the technology through pilots and other mechanisms.
2. Production of vaccines.
3. Distribution and training. Scale the model to maximize benefits.

Health/Safety: People know they should wear sunscreen to protect themselves from the sun, which burns, ages and wrinkles our skin and contributes to over 3.5 million cases of skin cancer each year.

Main Points:

There are several new wearable devices- from Fitbit-style bracelets to other jewelry- that track your exposure to the sun and help with sun protection options.

The first on the market, JUNE, can be worn as a bracelet or a brooch to monitor sun exposure throughout the day. Containing UV sensors and an iOS app, it reports on how much exposure you have gotten, the risk of UV radiation on a scale from 0 to 15 and lets you know to put on a hat or reapply sun screen.

Lower tech or more affordable options include bands, stickers, and Smartphone apps with precautions and alarms.

The challenge remains getting people to use sun protection – app or no app. Studies have shown electronic reminders to apply sunscreen as having mixed success.

Stakeholders:

Corporations designing and producing the devices.

People exposed to the sun. This is a huge population and device makers will need to segment the market and target early adaptors and people at risk.

Public health organizations and the medical profession. Due to the cost in treating skin cancer and related medical issues, the government and the medical profession have an interest in educating people about the risks of prolonged UV exposure and skin care.

Implementation:

Technical developments/product enhancements and production of the devices.

Market distribution for broad retail access.

Marketing/education. Information about the devices, how they work, and the benefits to be widely distributed to promote sales and change behaviors.